Magazine of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal

Volume 29, Number 1Summer 2018

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Rafael Lozano-HemmerSphere Packing: Wagner, 2013 3D printed glazed porcelain, 113 channels of sound13 cm (diameter)Courtesy the artist and bitforms gallery © Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / SODRAC, Montréal / VEGAP, Madrid (2018) Photo: Oliver Santana

Cover Rafael Lozano-HemmerPulse Spiral, 2008 Incandescent light bulbs, heart rate sensor, computer, DMX controller, custom software, dimmersCourtesy the artist and bitforms gallery © Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / SODRAC, Montréal / VEGAP, Madrid (2018) Photo: Antimodular Research

John Zeppetelli Director and Chief CuratorEDITORIAL

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In 2011, in one of the MAC’s most triumphant and memorable moments, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer lit up the sky above Place des Festivals with eighteen powerful searchlights. Levers at ground level allowed visitors the possibility of directing three lights anywhere in the heavens, while intersecting with other participants across the square. The participatory, anti-monumental grandeur of this ephemeral architectural canopy encapsulated much of the artist’s ongoing strategy: inviting people to use technology to critically interrupt and reshape—and take pleasure in—their environment.

Limitless talent, ambition and intellectual curiosity animate Lozano-Hemmer’s enormous and wide-ranging output, spanning theatrical, interactive installations in public space and small intimate experiences in galleries. Among the world’s most celebrated and charismatic artists, and a proud Montrealer, he was selected to rep-resent his native Mexico in that country’s first, and widely acclaimed, official representation at the Venice Biennale in 2007.

Robotics, surveillance and computers under-gird Lozano-Hemmer’s elegant and exciting cross-disciplinary artistic achievement. Relational and participatory in nature, this long-overdue sur-vey titled Unstable Presence hinges on the poetic and political dimension of the artist’s production, bringing together many major works of the last decade—all highly resonant theoretical models harnessing science, technology, politics, sociology, poetry and art history—in productive dialogue with visitors. The MAC is honoured to be co-producing

this exhibition with our colleagues at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, where it will be presented in 2020.

Two new thought-provoking collection shows in our ever-changing series Pictures for an Exhibition complete the program for spring and summer at the Musée. Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens’ far-seeing yet delicately fabricated The Prophets is a massive installation of hundreds of handmade sculptures, all models depicting—with various levels of irony and mischief—mostly factual economic and social knowledge gleaned from scientific journals, while attesting to the indisputable fact that economists are the most troubling proph-ets of our age.

Alone Together gathers works by Graeme Patterson, Jon Rafman, Sarah Anne Johnson and Jeremy Shaw in a dizzying rapture of self-absorp-tion and psychedelic stupor. Exploring the paradox of greater interiority and possible isolation in an ever-connected world, the display encompasses reflections on male friendship and solitude, col-lective rituals of personal intoxication, technology’s hold on modern consciousness and transcendental and mystical experiences.

After a record-breaking run that attracted 315,000 visitors, we finally had to say goodbye to the exceptional Leonard Cohen exhibition. For a little over five months, Montrealers and visitors to the city were clearly thrilled to connect with this much-loved artist. We are now working to bring the show to international audiences so that they too can share the Cohen experience. Filling our galleries for the coming summer are two new instalments in the continuing presentations of works from the collection, along with a major survey of the work of the exciting and highly regarded Mexican-born, Montréal-based artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer.

Magazine of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal is published two times a year.

ISSN 1916-8675 (print) ISSN 1927-8195 (online)

Head of Publications: Chantal CharbonneauEnglish translation and proofreading: Susan Le PanDesign: Réjean MyettePrinting: Croze Inc.

The Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal is a provincially owned corporation funded by the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec. The Musée receives additional funding from the Government of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts.

Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal 185, rue Sainte-Catherine Ouest Montréal (Québec) H2X 3X5 Tel.: 514 847-6226. www.macm.org

RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER UNSTABLE PRESENCE

EXHIBITIONS MAY 24 TO SEPTEMBER 9, 2018

After first earning a degree in chemistry, in the late 1980s Lozano-Hemmer began developing theat-rical performances incorporating sound, projec-tions and tracking systems. During the 1990s, he went on to explore the performative potential of interaction and, in particular, the integration of various artistic disciplines through technology. Lozano-Hemmer has increasingly become known for his large-scale installations that employ light projections and the architecture of public spaces and refer to the cultural history of these sites. The largest of these “anti-monuments”—and those that have garnered the most media attention—are dis-played in spectacular outdoor spaces to optimize their impact and accessibility. Montrealers will recall, for example, his imposing Articulated Intersect. Relational Architecture 18, presented by the Musée, in collaboration with the Quartier des Spectacles, on Place des Festivals during The Québec Triennial 2011.

The exhibition offers a new perspective on the artist’s output over the last eighteen years, exploring its poetic and political dimensions via the notion of co-presence. This concept refers primar-ily to the coexistence of viewpoints, active voices and singular experiences in Lozano-Hemmer’s

works: it addresses the relationships formed between spectators, and the situations elicited by the artwork’s dialogic devices. It also alludes to various, more asymmetrical types of relation-ships, forced cohabitations and issues of power, and evokes the question of observation, the inter-play of gazes and bodies under contemporary techniques of surveillance and control. Indeed, the playful and collective aspects of experiencing Lozano-Hemmer’s works often find themselves in fraught relationship with other, more disconcert-ing ones. Far removed from any sort of “tech-no-optimism,” the artist reminds us that the aesthetics of participation and new technologies is double-edged, and should not be understood as a solely liberating experience. The viewer does play a crucial role in shaping her experience through the appropriation of any given technical device, but such a process also serves to recall its belonging to a broader social system, in which technology, economics and politics are inter-woven in complex and often problematic ways.

The show’s title refers even more specifi-cally to the turbulence that often characterizes social and technical interrelations, and material-izes on various scales, from the personal to the

geopolitical. For many visitors, such notions of co-presence and instability will doubtless be pow-erfully echoed in the physical impact of the works on display, as the exhibition contains several major installations highlighting the material and sculptural dimension of the artist’s production.

Visitors to the MAC may remember the room-sized installation entitled Pulse Room, 2006, which was presented in the summer of 2014 and consisted of 300 incandescent light bulbs hanging from the ceiling that were acti-vated by a sensor that captured visitors’ heart-beats. Here, the same light bulbs and kilometres of electrical cabling are reconfigured to form Pulse Spiral, 2008, which is suspended in the Musée rotunda. The light bulbs are arranged in a spiral paraboloid according to one of Pierre de Fermat’s (1607–1665) mathematical equations. As a participant holds the sensor, her heartbeat is detected and sets off the lowest bulb in the spiral; when she releases it, all the lights turn off briefly and then flicker as the most recent pulse displaces, by one, each of its predecessors. The magical and evanescent spiral of light betrays the undeniable fascination one may feel as one actu-ally sees one’s heartbeat, but also the power to activate light on such a large scale. As with many of his works, the artist has decided to leave the technologies that run the piece visible, thereby revealing the inner workings of the apparatus. Light is used as a material and as a subject in many of Lozano-Hemmer’s participative public art projects, and throughout the exhibition light and shadow are employed to activate the space. In Voice Array, 2011, for instance, participants’ voices are translated into columns of light that circulate around the perimeter of the gallery.

Montréal-based artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer (born in Mexico City in 1967) is one of the leading figures on the international scene of participatory and digital-media practices. While his work is regularly shown in the most prestigious institutions around the world, this exhibition is the first museum survey to be presented in Canada or the United States.

Lesley Johnstone and François LeTourneux Curators

Voice Array, 2011Intercom, LED bulbs, speaker, hardware and softwareCourtesy the artist and bitforms gallery © Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / SODRAC, Montréal / VEGAP, Madrid (2018) Photo: Grace Storey, Carroll/Fletcher Gallery

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33 Questions per Minute, 2000 Computer, software, LCD screensCourtesy the artist and bitforms gallery © Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / SODRAC, Montréal / VEGAP, Madrid (2018)Photo: Peter Mallet

33 Questions per Minute, 2000, consists of a computer program that uses a predetermined bank of words and grammatical structures to generate fifty-five billion unique questions in ran-dom combinations. The automated questions are presented at a rate of thirty-three per min-ute—the threshold of legibility—on twenty-one tiny LCD screens or on a larger scale, projected on a wall. The system will take 3,000 years to ask all possible questions. Because of the fascinating absurdity of the questions formed (“Will you bleed in an orderly fashion?... Is the creator always being born?…”), the work recalls the tradi-tion of automatic poetry. However, instead of providing a peek into the psychological depths of its author, the sentences’ formulation process

shifts the focus onto the reader’s wholly personal interpretation of the words. The experience is all the more frustrating as one has very little time to think about their meanings, and might even fear integrating some almost subliminally. In certain versions of the work, spectators can contribute by writing their own questions, and humans’ words mix in with the machine’s. Then, the con-fusion of voices, the mystery of the interrogative form and the possible references to the context of the work (the exhibition site, the figure of the artist, the spectators, the events of the day) help create a synergy, where the signs of the work and those of the world intermingle.

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EXHIBITIONS MAY 24 TO SEPTEMBER 9, 2018

RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER

Zoom Pavilion, 2015 in collaboration with Krzysztof Wodiczko Projectors, infrared cameras,computers, infrared illuminatorsCourtesy the artists and bitforms gallery© Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / SODRAC, Montréal / VEGAP, Madrid (2018)Photo: Antimodular Research

In the room-sized interactive installation Zoom Pavilion, 2015, the viewer/participant is sur-rounded by projected black-and-white images of faces and bodies localized within the space. Twelve computerized surveillance cameras track the presence of participants and, employing facial recognition, background subtraction and machine-learning algorithms, record their spatial relationships to one another. Relatively quickly, our own face will appear projected onto three of the four walls and the floor, while terms and figures emerge—potential, interest, remote, per-spective—which circumscribe, describe and measure our relationships with others in the space. Projected onto the back wall is an archive that shows faces of participants in pairs, specify-ing how long they were together, how far apart they remained and when this assembly hap-pened. The cameras amplify our faces up to thirty-five times, creating huge close-ups and thus literally zooming into our gaze, while also zoom-ing out to show the whole room, emphasizing the entire immersive landscape. In Zoom Pavilion, which marks Lozano-Hemmer’s first collabora-tion with Krzysztof Wodiczko, the omnipresence of surveillance cameras is clearly signalled, but what is similarly at stake is the way technologies determine and control the circulation of informa-tion, images and data: How do we interact with one another in public space, how do we react when our spatial relationships are tracked, where does all the information that technologies gather end up… ?

Vicious Circular Breathing, 2013, is a large sculp-tural installation evoking both a curious scientific device and a gigantic musical wind instrument, similar to an organ. Made up of a series of inter-connected elements, including a glass room with double sliding doors, emergency exits, carbon dioxide and oxygen sensors, motorized bellows, an electromagnetic valve system and a tree-like arrangement of sixty-one paper bags hanging from respiration tubes, the work is presented as a large, continually changing apparatus that visitors can personally experience. One is invited to enter a hermetically sealed glass box, to breathe the air that was previously breathed by past participants. The breaths are kept circulating and made per-ceptible by the action of the bellows, which inflate and deflate the brown paper bags around 10,000 times a day (approximately the normal respiratory frequency for an adult at rest). The piece includes warnings regarding the risks of asphyxiation, contagion and panic, and produces a faint mechanical sound, a quiet whir from the air flow and a louder crackle from the crumpling bags. Beyond its surprising connection of technological modernity’s dangers with immersion as an artistic apparatus inherited from the Baroque, the work also seems to suggest that the invaluable aspects of participatory culture and new technologies are indissociable from their collusion with a broader regime of systemic violence.

Vicious Circular Breathing, 2013 Glass room, bellows, tubes, brown paper bags, manifold valve systemCourtesy Borusan Contemporary, Istanbul© Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / SODRAC, Montréal / VEGAP, Madrid (2018)Photo: Oliver Santana

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EXHIBITIONS MAY 24 TO SEPTEMBER 9, 2018

Exhibited in semi-darkness, Call on Water, 2016, is a fountain that acts as a poetry machine activated by the spectators’ presence. Words appear on the basin surface, briefly materialized in the air by ultrasonic atomizers as plumes of cold vapour. The words gently form and dissolve; the surface of the basin then covers up with a layer of white vapour, before new words start appearing. Thus emerge from the fountain, frag-ment by fragment, dozens of poems by the cele-brated Mexican writer Octavio Paz (1914–1998), who was also the artist’s uncle. All invoke lan-guage: the way we see the world through words; the way words, conversely, reflect our own image back to us. Our experience of language is always deeply felt, the poems seem to say, engaging the

visible as much as the tactile and audible, as well as the passage of time. The lapping of the water and the soft hiss of the vapour add to the con-templative atmosphere of the piece and punc-tuate the phrases, underscoring the physical dimension of language. The work suggests that words actually materialize in mid-air, carried by the breath of those who speak them, then dis-solve or remain mysteriously lodged there, and are physically incorporated by those who hear or read them. These metaphors also appear in other works in the exhibition, such as Airborne Newscast, 2013, Vicious Circular Breathing, 2013, Babbage Nanopamphlets, 2015, and Volute 1: Au clair de la lune, 2016.

Call On Water, 2006 Ultrasonic atomizers, aluminum and steel basin, custom electronics, computer, water295 × 114 × 35 cmCourtesy the artist and bitforms gallery © Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / SODRAC, Montréal / VEGAP, Madrid (2018)Photo: Franz J. Wamhof

RAFAEL LOZANO-HEMMER

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Sphere Packing: Bach, 2017, and Sphere Packing: Wagner, 2013, are two in a series of seventeen works that concentrate the entire musi-cal production of a composer into a single multi-channel sphere. The size of each sphere is proportional to how prolific the composer was: Hildegard von Bingen’s bronzed steel sphere is but 11 cm in diameter and comprises sixty-nine channels of sound, while Mozart’s white polymer sphere is 35 cm and has 565 channels. In the exhibition, the black-glazed porcelain sphere dedicated to Richard Wagner (13 cm comprising 113 channels) hangs from the ceiling and visitors have to bring their ear up close in order to hear the Romantic compositions. By far the most pro-lific composer, Johann Sebastian Bach required 1,128 individual speakers distributed through a 3-m sphere that visitors may physically enter and thus immerse themselves in the Baroque sounds. The compositions are arranged so that at times only one is audible while at others, the piece reaches a musical crescendo when all 1,128 com-positions are playing simultaneously. As in much of Lozano-Hemmer’s work, Sphere Packing: Bach translates data into physical form, making sound visibly perceptible and transforming immateriality into immersive space.

Co-curated by Rudolf Frieling, curator of media arts at

the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA),

and Lesley Johnstone, curator and head of exhibitions

and education at the MAC, with François LeTourneux,

associate curator, MAC, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer:

Unstable Presence is co-organized by the MAC and

SFMOMA, where it will be presented in 2020 after touring

to Monterrey, Mexico in 2019.

Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, who was born in Mexico City

in 1967, lives and works in Montréal. He was the first

artist to represent Mexico at the Venice Biennale, with

an exhibition at the Palazzo Van Axel in 2007. He has

also shown at biennials and triennials in Cuenca,

Havana, Istanbul, Kochi, Liverpool, Melbourne,

Montréal, Moscow, New Orleans, New York, Seoul,

Seville, Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney. Lozano-

Hemmer’s artistic production has been featured in

solo exhibitions and performances in numerous insti-

tutions, including the Museo Universitario Arte

Contemporáneo (MUAC) in Mexico City (2015), San

Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) (2012),

the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney (2011), the

Manchester Art Gallery (2010), the Guggenheim

Museum, New York (2009) and the Barbican Centre,

London (2008). His work may be found in the collections

of such museums as the Museum of Modern Art (New

York), Tate Modern (London), Musée d’art contempo-

rain de Montréal, SFMOMA, Museum of Old and New

Art (Hobart, Tasmania), Hirshhorn Museum and

S c u l p t u r e G a r d e n ( Wa s h i ng to n) , Bo r u s a n

Contemporary (Istanbul), Zentrum für Kunst und

Medien (Karlsruhe) and MUAC (Mexico). He is repre-

sented by bitforms gallery (New York), Art Bärtschi &

Cie (Geneva) and Max Estrella (Madrid).

Airborne Projection, 2013Projectors, computers, surveillance cameras, softwareCourtesy the artist and bitforms gallery © Rafael Lozano-Hemmer / SODRAC, Montréal / VEGAP, Madrid (2018)Photo: Oliver Santana

This exhibition is presented by La Presse+

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PICTURES FOR AN EXHIBITION THE PROPHETS

EXHIBITIONS APRIL 6 TO AUGUST 26, 2018

The latest instalment of Pictures for an Exhibition, which includes works by Josef Albers, Jack Bush, Sol LeWitt and Jana Sterbak, centres around a piece titled The Prophets. Created by Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens, a pair of Québec artists who explore the ways in which economics repre-sents the world, the work consists of a collection of delicate little sculptures made by hand using everyday materials such as string, bamboo sticks, wire and sheets of acetate. Laid out on long tables, these fragile, abstract-looking sculptures reveal 3D models inspired by economic graphs.

Tinged with humour and irony, they depict knowledge gleaned from academic and scientific journals, and attempt to predict human behaviour by analyzing how work, consumption and produc-tion interact. They include concrete data and mental abstractions, law-curves and fact-curves, positions drawn in logical time and in historical time, and various other forms and procedures common to

economic analyses. Made up of 412 structures that interpret a wide range of historical and con-temporary topics, The Prophets examines the concepts of labour and the workforce, consump-tion and productivity, investment and other factors of interest to economists. The tone of their hand-written descriptions and plays on words conveys a skepticism as to the accuracy of their sources and an understanding that scientific and economic models are fleeting and transitory.

In producing these scale models, sorts of diagrams of economic thought, Ibghy and Lemmens reinterpret data that usually relates to statistical concepts and shape it into a vast array of abstract forms. The placement of the installation sets up a dialogue with other works in the exhibition. By foregrounding shared formal and conceptual notions, this presentation of Pictures aims to high-light a selection of works with complementary material qualities.

Richard Ibghy and Marilou LemmensThe Prophets, 2013–2015Installation view, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal 412 elements Assorted materialsIn process of acquisition © Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens (2018)Photo: Richard-Max Tremblay

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“As people who examine the destiny and moral character of a nation, economists are modern-day prophets, and the charts and diagrams they produce are their prophesies.”

Richard Ibghy and Marilou Lemmens

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Marie-Eve BeaupréCurator of the Collection

ALONE TOGETHER

MAY 18 TO AUGUST 26, 2018

In this new instalment of Pictures for an Exhibition showcasing works from the collection, four Canadian artists from the same generation are gathered together around a simple yet complex phrase: Alone Together. If solitude is recognized as fundamental to our core being, how does it express itself in an era of unparalleled connectivity?

Here, Sarah Anne Johnson revisits a music festival and creates a photographic record of these modern-day Dionysian celebrations, collective rituals where social constraints are shed in favour of an intoxicated freedom. The scenes that form the Field Trip series combine euphoria and psyche-delia. The ephemeral quality of the individual experience reveals the futility of the utopia sought by the community of festival goers.

Graeme Patterson examines the vagaries of male friendship, and the passage to adulthood as a transition from the collective state of childhood to the solitary state that characterizes maturity. Player Piano Waltz is a sculpture and video instal-lation consisting of a scale model of a 1920s hotel bar perched atop a player piano. The edifice comes to life when a visitor feeds a coin into the piano. Animated movies are projected in the building’s various rooms, to the sound of melancholy music composed by the artist. The protagonists’ actions gradually run out of steam, until the two men find themselves Alone Together in a nameless bar.

Jon Rafman takes a lucid, caustic look at digital technology and new media. Visitors are invited to watch his film, Erysichthon, while isolated in a glass box, exposing themselves to the stares of passersby. The work as it is experienced dem-onstrates technology’s hold on contemporary consciousness and casts a nostalgic and ironic eye at social conventions as well as our virtual communities and their disconcerting realities.

In his series of photographs titled Towards Universal Pattern Recognition, Jeremy Shaw crys-tallizes the concept of rapture, through images characterized by their strong materiality. He uses archive photographs showing communities of individuals undergoing mystical experiences, espe-cially during religious events. He encloses these documentary images inside prismatic shapes, focusing the gaze, like a vanishing point, on the area where the heart of the transcendental experi-ence lies. The kaleidoscopic effect and distortion of the images explicitly illustrate this state of rapture that opens up to parallel and multiple realities.

How does the way we use new technologies, attend large political and religious gatherings, visit public spaces and partake in festive events redefine our individuality, our personal, inner spaces? Each in their own way, the artists in this selection ponder the paradoxes of our society and the concept of community.

Sarah Anne JohnsonZombie Dance (from the Field Trip series), 2015Chromogenic print, 4/570.5 × 106.5 cmPurchased with the support of the 2016 National Bank Private Wealth 1859 Collectors Symposium Collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal© Sarah Anne Johnson (2018)Photo: Courtesy Division Gallery

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Sarah Anne JohnsonJungle Dreamer (from the Field Trip series), 2015Chromogenic print, 2/535.8 × 32.7 cmPurchased with the support of the 2016 National Bank Private Wealth 1859 Collectors Symposium Collection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal© Sarah Anne Johnson (2018)Photo: Courtesy the artist and Division Gallery

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NATIONAL BANK PRIVATE WEALTH 1859 COLLECTORS SYMPOSIUM

FOUNDATION

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The Collectors Symposium, presented by National Bank Private Wealth 1859, is designed to give participants an opportunity to share in the experi-ence of sitting on an art acquisition committee. Much appreciated by art lovers and collectors, this evening also offers those less familiar with today’s art a chance to discover contemporary works and the important role they play within a museum collection.

In recent years, the Symposium has allowed major works to be added to the Musée collection. The proceeds generated, thanks in large part to the generous participation of National Bank, have enabled the museum to acquire pieces by Nicolas Baier, Valérie Blass, Michel de Broin, Pierre Dorion, Dil Hildebrand, Sarah Anne Johnson, Ed Pien, Adrian Paci, Skawennati, Hito Steyerl and Etienne Zack, among others.

SkawennatiWords Before All Else Part 1 (freeze frame), 2017Machinima with sound, 1 min 14 sPurchased with the support of the 2017 National Bank Private Wealth 1859 Collectors SymposiumCollection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal© Skawennati (2018)Photo: Courtesy ELLEPHANT gallery

SkawennatiTimeTraveller™ (freeze frame), 2007-2014Machinima with sound, 75 min 43 sPurchased with the support of the 2017 National Bank Private Wealth 1859 Collectors SymposiumCollection of the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal© Skawennati (2018)Photo: Courtesy ELLEPHANT gallery

Held in the spirit of an art acquisition committee, the eleventh edition of the Collectors Symposium took place at the museum on Tuesday, November 14, 2017. Co-chaired by Julie Couture and Sara Joli-Coeur, this annual fundraising event for the Musée Foundation invited seventy guests to take part in selecting an acquisition for the Musée collection. Following their deliberations, our guests chose two video works by Québec artist Skawennati.

Skawennati was born in Kahnawake Mohawk Territory in 1969. Concerned by the absence of Indigenous peoples in our collective imagination of the future, this Mohawk artist uses media arts to create an Indigenous presence in cyberspace. Skawennati’s work is known mainly through her “machinimas,” films set in virtual environments, in which the artist choreographs the actions of avatars whose voices are supplied by members of her community. Her “futuristic” representations of Indigenous people help combat the stereotypes conveyed by the media and assert the vibrancy of current Indigenous culture, which has a long future ahead of it. Skawennati holds a BFA from Concordia University in Montréal, where she is based. She is co-director, with Jason Edward Lewis, of Aboriginal Territories in Cyberspace (AbTeC), a research network of artists, academics and technologists investigating, creating and cri-tiquing Indigenous virtual environments. Her work has been featured more than fifty times in numerous

solo and group exhibitions, and at film festivals around the world. She is represented by the ELLEPHANT gallery in Montréal.

The first work acquired, TimeTraveller™, 2007–2014, revolves around a series of nine short machinima episodes. In them, we follow the story of Hunter, a young Mohawk man living in the twenty-second century who sets off on a virtual quest on which he visits milestones in Indigenous history, using the technology of TimeTraveller™ glasses, and meets Karahkwenhawi, a young Mohawk woman living in the present. This captivating piece offers a critical post-colonial rereading of the history of the Indigenous people of Turtle Island (North America, in some cultures).

Onkweshòn:’a: Words Before All Else Part 1, 2017, is the second machinima acquired. An avatar of the artist recites, in English, French and kan-ien’kéha, the f irst verse of the Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen—the Thanksgiving Address tra-ditionally given at the start of any Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) gathering. The inclusion of the Indigenous language expresses the vitality and continuity of Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) culture, as well as the loss of territories, as these words are spoken on traditional unceded Kanien’keha:ka (Mohawk) ter-ritory, which long served as a place for meeting and trade between nations.

Marie-Eve Beaupré,with the collaboration of Eli LarinNOVEMBER 14, 2017

THE MAC TRANSFORMATION

EVENTS

For several years now, the MAC has been planning a major transformation of its building, aimed at expansion and enhanced service to its visitors. What a thrill it is to be able to finally announce that work will begin in 2019!

Transforming the MAC means creating a receptive, magical environment for art. It means making the museum more welcoming, more visitor-friendly. And it also entails expansion of the exhibition spaces.The winning proposal in the architectural compe-tition organized by the MAC was presented by Saucier+Perrotte Architectes / GLCRM & Associés Architectes, a consortium of Québec architects. Selected unanimously by the jury, this inspiring and stylish project will result in a resolutely con-temporary construction fully in keeping with the museum’s raison d’être. With its brilliant focus on openness and transparency, the MAC transfor-mation will give the public a building that lives up to their expectations.

On the building’s south side, with its luminous and distinctive architecture, an unostentatiously elegant entrance will funnel pedestrians towards the museum. Exhibition spaces will be significantly increased, notably through the addition of three new galleries accessible from the entrance hall by means of a wide, sculptural staircase. The new spaces devoted to our educational activities,

illuminated by a glass façade overlooking the Place des Arts Esplanade, will double in size. At the top of the building, the MAC’s new restaurant will be surrounded by large glassed bays, becom-ing a kind of light-filled terrace overlooking the spectacle of the city and opening on the east side onto a hanging garden. The MAC Boutique’s new locale will also encompass a bookstore and a coffee shop.

I am particularly pleased to note that the transformation will blend in a respectful and fluid way with the urban context of the Quartier des Spectacles, but also with the MAC’s original build-ing, designed by Jodoin Lamarre et Pratte, whose entire north section will be retained. This trans-formation promises to instil the museum with a vitality that will radiate throughout Montréal, but will also spread beyond, I’m convinced, to the rest of the world.

In anticipation of the grand reopening sched-uled for 2021, the MAC will take up residence next January in temporary premises, where in summer 2019 it will begin welcoming visitors with a program that, though reduced, will reflect its customary quality and rigour. The MAC’s aim is to remain active and visible throughout the construction period, maintaining its relationship with the city and its presence in the community by occupying a fixed location, but also by presenting exhibitions and other temporary art events across Montréal.

So, I invite you to stay with us and to take part in the marvellous adventure getting under way next year.

1. View from Place des Festivals (Rue Jeanne-Mance) 2. View from Rue Sainte-Catherine 3. View from the terrace and the restaurant, second level 4. View of the Hall, Esplanade level 5. View from the Place des Arts Esplanade Photos: Saucier+Perrotte Architectes / GLCRM & Associés Architectes

John Zeppetelli

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Cindy VeilleuxCoordinator, Collections Data Management

DIGITAL DISSEMINATION AND MEDIATION

DIGITAL CULTURAL PLAN

ONLINE COLLECTIONS

Since it was launched in 2017, the new Online Collections section on the Musée website showcases a broad range of works and offers insight into the Québec, Canadian and international artists whose output enriches the MAC collection. While only 1.5% of the thousands of works it contains are on display, the dissemination goal—which is in sync with digital culture—is embodied in a platform that promotes accessibility to a wide audience and allows visitors to explore, in just a few clicks, a selection of around 300 works, refreshed on a random basis to highlight each of them, in turn.

Digital, sound and video works, installations, paintings, sculptures, photographs and works on paper: the online collections provide privileged access to clips from video works along with a wealth of information in the form of images as well as textual and audiovisual content. Navigating with the Artists tab opens up a portrait gallery, a new way to discover the artists hidden behind the works in the collection. The On View and Off Site sections inform users about works currently on display at the museum or on view in public spaces, while two other sections feature recent acquisitions. In 2019, the Musée will be adding a complete search directory for its collections, events and publications, including artists’ archives.

We are also pleased to report that, last November 30, the MAC won a Boomerang award in the Site or Application – Art and Culture category for its redesigned website and its online collections, an honour recognizing the quality of this twofold achievement supported by Québec’s digital cultural plan.

macm.org/en/collections

LE BLOGUEA SPACE TO MEET THE MUSÉE AND TELL ITS STORY

As part of its initiative to fully utilize its mediation tools, the Musée recently launched its new blog, which is accessed via the museum website. The aim of this platform is to spark thought and deliberation about contemporary art and allow the public to discover the works in the collection by becoming familiar with their content. Presented in different posts, the blog is also a chance to demonstrate the museum’s vibrant energy and the various points of view that enliven it. Ranging from enriched contents to anecdotes, from a slice of history to spontaneous questions, the blog is meant to be a space to meet the MAC and tell its story. Les complices, for example, is a category that highlights the public’s perspective through interviews or creative projects in which the Musée is revealed through visitors’ eyes. In another vein, the Jouer avec le temps section invites visitors to discover the museum’s past by walking through a few pages in our historical journey. It will also be a means of forging links with our chronology and encouraging an exploration of the museum’s archives. The blog as a whole thus revolves around the works in the collection, in this way forming a bridge with the online collections.

In short, for the Musée, the blog is a way to offer a space for digital mediation in a spirit of interaction and continuity with its educational activity. It is a resource that complements personal experience of the works, while drawing on the wide-ranging dialogue that is established between the MAC and its visitors. These visitors can, at any time, use the blog to ask their questions or share their thoughts, and so participate in the myriad encounters that take place there.

macm.org/blogue

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The Musée’s digital projects help bring to light different perspectives on its collection, archives and history, creating new opportunities to connect with its various audiences.

Marjolaine BourduaCoordinator, Digital Mediation

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UNTIL NOW A CHRONOLOGY OF THE MAC SINCE 1964

Julie BélisleHead of Digital Content Development

This interactive chronology, produced in collaboration with Dpt., revisits the history of the museum since it was founded, in order to make the main stages in the life of the Musée accessible to visitors. Bringing together a wide range of documentation, Until Now presents the various locations the MAC has occupied, a list of its successive directors, a history of its exhi bitions—which is closely interconnected with building its collections—the positions it has taken during key events, etc. The material it gathers outlines a brief chron-ology of the museum, while making related archival documents available for the first time. It essentially consists of a selection of some two hundred events that have contributed to the development of the visual arts community in Québec and the writing of its history since the 1960s.

Presented on an interactive platform where users can decide the route they want to follow and choose different types of content, this story of the MAC is told through a cross-referencing of the selected items, with accom-panying visuals. Among other things, users will be able to revisit group shows that presented a survey of the Québec art scene at a particular point in time; gain an overview of major donations and acquisitions; trace the main retro-spectives devoted to Québec artists; or access a selection of the museum’s most daring projects.

One of the goals of Until Now is to provide a new take on the traditional timeline genre by adopting a lateral structure. The configuration of this experi-ence, with more than forty tags and keywords assigned, helps form con-nections between elements separated in time and reveals some illuminating readings of the exhibitions that have shaped the Musée over the years.

chronologie.macm.org

This project is produced in collaboration with Dpt. (dpt.co), a digital studio specialized

in creating immersive and narrative experiences.

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To follow the progress of our digital projects, visit www.macm.org/en/the-musee/major-digital-projects

These three projects receive support under Québec’s digital cultural plan (culturenumerique.mcc.gouv.qc.ca). The MAC’s online collections and chronology also receive support from the Entente sur le développement culturel de Montréal.

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PRACTICAL INFORMATION

HoursMonday: Closed to the general public; open to groups by reservation Tuesday: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.Saturday, Sunday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Admission$19 – Adults$14 – Seniors (age 60 and over)$12 – Students (age 18 and over with valid I.D.)$7 – Youth (age 13 to 17)Free admission for children under 12 and MACarte cardholders$38 – Families (2 adults with children)Half-price Wednesday evenings from 5 p.m.

Musée BoutiqueTuesday: 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.Saturday: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.Sunday: 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.Closed Mondays

Subscribe to the Musée’s e-newsletter at www.macm.org/en

PARTNERS

The MAC would like to thank all its partners for contributing to the realization of the exhibition Rafael-Lozano Hemmer: Unstable Presence.

Presenting partner

Official suppplier

MAC event and Foundation partner

Educational activities partner

Public partners

EXHIBITIONS Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Unstable PresenceMay 24 to September 9, 2018

Pictures – The ProphetsUntil August 26, 2018

Pictures – Alone TogetherUntil August 26, 2018

ARTIST AND CURATOR TALKS

Tours related to the exhibition Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Unstable Presence

Tours of the exhibition with curators Lesley Johnstone and François LeTourneuxThursday, May 31, at 6.30 p.m. (in French) and Thursday, June 7, at 6.30 p.m. (in English) 

Multilingual guided tour (English, French, Spanish) with the artistThursday, July 26, at 6.30 p.m.

For the duration of the exhibition, the artist and members of Antimodular will periodically be proposing an alternative composition of the work Sphere Packing: Bach, 2017. See the MAC website for more details.

NOCTURNE

Friday, June 15, 2018

INTERACTIVE TOURS FOR ALL

Tours related to the exhibition Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Unstable Presence

Interactive tours for all Without reservation, included in the price of admissionWednesdays at 5, 6 and 7:30 p.m. in French and 6:30 p.m. in EnglishFridays, Saturdays and Sundays at 1:30 p.m. in English and 3 p.m. in French

Tour for children with Stephan Schulz and Karine Charbonneau of AntimodularSaturday, July 28, at 11 a.m.

Tour for “technofreaks” with members of AntimodularThursday, August 9, at 7.30 p.m.

Tours are also offered, by reservation, for any group of 10 or more. Reservations and information: 514 847-6253

ART MEDIATORS IN THE GALLERIES

Art mediators in the galleries: Pictures for an ExhibitionArt mediators will be on hand in the galleries to answer your questions and discuss the exhibition with you on Wednesdays from 5 to 8 p.m. and on Saturdays and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m.

SÉMINARTS

An educational program that consists of five sessions providing an introduction to the art of collecting contem-porary art, offered in collaboration with the Claudine and Stephen Bronfman Family Foundation.

SéminArts fall 2018Regular series in French: September 26, October 10, October 24, November 14, November 28Advanced series in English: October 3, October 17, November 7, November 21, December 5

Cost: $225 per series15% off for MACarte holdersSessions take place Wednesday evenings from 7:30 to 9 p.m.

Information and registration:www.macm.org/en/activities-and-events/seminartsseminarts@macm.org514 847-6244

PROGRAM

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FAMILY WORKSHOPS

Every Sunday at 1:30 p.m. or 2:30 p.m.

The Family Sundays program consists of a 30-minute tour followed by a 1-hour workshop. Free for children under 12 (must be accompanied by an adult). No reservation necessary. No Family Sundays from June 24 to September 9, 2018.

Workshop related to the exhibition Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Unstable Presence

Body Images June 3, 10 and 17, 2018

Inspired by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer’s impressive works Airborne Projection (Relational Architecture 20), 2013, and Subtitled Public, 2005, participants in this workshop will be invited to produce images that will reveal their silhou-ettes—actual or transformed—through multiple visual effects. They will draw and cut out their own silhouettes, which they may associate with verbs of action. They will handle camcorders, cameras and digital projectors, point light beams and experiment with different types of image transfer and transformation. They will juxtapose and superimpose their silhouettes onto those of other partici-pants. In this way, they will all work together to build an extensive repertory of body images.

Workshop related to the exhibition Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Unstable Presence

With Fingertips May 27, 2018* at 1, 2, 3 and 4 p.m., Montréal Museums Day July 5, 6, 7 and 8, 2018, from 1 to 4 p.m., Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, Rio Tinto Family Club September 16 and 23, and October 7 and 14, 2018September 30, 2018*, Journées de la culture *Free

Prompted by the spectacular installation Pulse Spiral, 2008, by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, participants will be invited to create an electrifying drawing made up of vari-ous elements produced by pigment transfer. Depending on the pressure exerted, the energy applied and the number and density of gestures made by the fingertips on the surface, the outline of the bulbs will be revealed with more or less intensity.

ADULT WORKSHOPS

The Creative Moments program is offered on different days and at different times.Dates marked with an asterisk* indicate that the workshop will be preceded by a tour of the exhibition. Cost: $16 per workshop. Registration required: reservation.education@macm.orgor 514 847-6266

Series of workshops related to the exhibition Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Unstable Presence

Silhouettes Project May 29* and 30*, and June 5, 6, 12 and 13, 2018, from 1:30 to 4 p.m. orMay 30* and June 6 and 13, 2018, from 6 to 8:30 p.m.In this series of activities, you’ll have the opportunity to observe highly original works and follow the career of a remarkable artist, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. You’ll discover various themes found in his technological installations, including light, shadow, architecture and silhouette. You’ll try out, from a new angle, the many creative possibilities offered by a mix of different techniques, media and materials. Drawing, sculpture, printmaking, watercolour, assemblage and installation will be on the program.

MUSÉE DAY CAMPS

Summer For children age 6 to 15,June 26 to August 17, 2018Visit the website www.macm.org/campsInformation and registration: 514 847-6266

GROUP ACTIVITIES

The Workshop/Tour Combo program offered from Monday to Friday is intended for all categories of visitors: preschool, school, college, university, professional, tourist and community groups. Visit the website www.macm.org/en/education Reservations and information: 514 847-6253reservation.education@macm.org

Body Images May 25 to June 21, 2018

With FingertipsSeptember 15 to October 12, 2018

SUMMER COMBO

Includes workshop and tour of the exhibitions. This pro-gram is intended for all: daycare centres (age 4 and up), day camps, community organizations and any other group interested in art.

Workshop related to the exhibition Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Unstable Presence

Breathe In, Breathe OutJune 27 to August 18, 2018, from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. or from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. The works Vicious Circular Breathing, 2013, Airborne Projection, 2013, and Zoom Pavilion, 2015, by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, will provide the breath of inspiration for this novel creative activity. Participants will be invited to produce a self-portrait/silhouette that will reveal the space occupied by their body in public space. Graphic elements will energize the overall composition, which will also include a component inflated by their own breath.

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